Our Expat Family Life & Challenges On Lockdown

We’re an expat family living in an enhanced quarantine in Manila, Philippines. Through this blog post, I hope to reach out to those of you who feel lost in the isolation and let you know that you’re not alone. Whether you are still at post overseas or back in your home country after evacuation, the fact is that our lives were quite a bit disrupted. Who knows what will come next, but we have to stay positive and do our part to help our communities. I believe that each day we are closer to the end of a battle against COVID-19.

My husband, Texan of origin, and I, Japanese of origin, have lived overseas together for almost 20 years. Considering that we have known many friends who had gone through evacuations from Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia, China, Japan, Bangladesh, Haiti, Venezuela, and more, I know that we’ve been very fortunate with peaceful assignments abroad. My husband’s first assignment was in Dakar, Senegal from 2003 to 2005. I never forget that an expat, who had served in a few African countries, said to me, “if you can leave an African country without a coup, consider yourself lucky.” We left Dakar without a coup. In the past 20 years, we’ve lived Japan, the United States, Senegal, Indonesia, India and the Philippines together. We’ve never had to go through any crisis or evacuation. Until now.

When a crisis hits a host country, the first thing that comes to expats’ minds is this: Should we leave? Many expats consider seeking refuge back in their home country if a crisis including natural disaster takes place while living abroad. However, something was a bit different this time. After WHO declared that the Covid-19 outbreak was a pandemic on March 11 and Manila was expected to go into lockdown, some expats made an immediate decision to fly back home. Some more followed. However, there were those who didn’t leave. Due to the nature of the disease and how countries responded, not everyone felt that it was an option.

A Little Timeline

People in the Philippines went through a whirlwind of changes. The announcement that notified about a community quarantine in Manila was made on March 12. From the first announcement of school closure on March 9, Monday, to Manila’s closing its door to outside from midnight on March 15, Sunday, it felt as though every 12 hours, we found ourselves learning new rules to be enforced in the city. Apparently the Philippines is the 3rd country to order lockdown after China and Italy. The shift from a community quarantine in Metro Manila to a lockdown to stop the movement of people took place in about 4 days.

All the transportation by sea, air and land was suspended from midnight of March 15, which caused a lot of foreigners to be stranded on the islands of the Philippines. All of the non-essential businesses were closed. Grocery stores, food and other essential vendors and restaurants that offer delivery service were given permission to open for business. A curfew from 8:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. was implemented. Police and military personnels were deployed on the streets. People are allowed to go outside if they go out to buy food or medicine. For such purposes, only one member of a household is asked to leave at a time with a permit distributed by the community. At the beginning, people could walk, jog or bike, but soon walking outside or taking a dog for a walk became prohibited.

The rules felt overwhelming at first. It took sometime for my brain to really process everything that was happening in our lives.

Disrupted Lives

After lockdown was implied on March 12, we started seeing expats fleeing the country. It was unsettling to see our friends pack and fly back to their home countries. Things were changing quickly. The decisions and arrangements had to be made swiftly since the number of flight options were getting slimmer. Hearing about people pack up and leave left me with alarming feelings. At the same time, I can’t explain why and I could be naive, but I felt somewhat unperturbed about continuing to live in Manila.

Those of us who decided to stay at post, in our case Manila, braced ourselves for shelter in place. As expected, people initially faced with many inconveniences as well as fear. However, the city and communities had made some adjustments as time went. The restriction was enforced strictly and in some cases, it caused distress among expats. It seemed, thought, that as the concept of social distancing started to sink in, people started to accept the fact that this was going to be our new normal and we just had to live with it for now.

Why Did We Stay?

I decided to stay and keep our kids in Manila even though the kids and I have been given an option to evacuate back to the U.S. The main reason to stay has to do with my husband’s job that keeps him in Manila. If we stay, our kids can be with their dad and he has our support. Having given an option to cope with this crisis together, I wanted to take it. Leaving meant that there was no telling of when our kids and I would see him again. I’ve anticipated that it could be months of separation. This idea scared me. Thus, I was determined to keep my family together as long as we could. There are other factors that I considered, but this was major.

I’m not here to suggest any ideas or opinion with my decision. It was the conclusion my husband and I drew for our family. At this point, no one knows what the best choice is. Therefore, you have to listen to your heart and what your gut tells you. Either way, decision making was an agonizing process. Even after making up my mind, I went back and forth. Every time I hear that another family was leaving, I felt happy for them, but I couldn’t help feeling disheartened at the same time.

Despite of the dispiriting time, I could stick to my decision thanks to many other expats who have stayed in Manila. Having peers to emotionally support and encourage each other through messenger groups in this difficult time has been a lifesaver. It feels comforting to know that we’re in this hardship together even though we don’t get to see each other. There is a variety of reports that come out of the Philippines, but based on my observation, Filipinos are doing a good job managing the lockdown and containing the spread of COVID-19. They are amazingly patient. Having lived in Manila for the last year and a half, I was able to feel confident about staying and I owe it to the local people. Filipinos are warm, kind and friendly people. Being in this environment helps to cope with the crisis.

What Are The Challenges?

There were 2 circumstances where I found particularly difficult as a parent in the life of the enhanced community quarantine and the changes that came in our environment.

My kids observed their peers and teachers leave the Philippines. This especially affected my high school daughter. In her eyes, her friends left to go to the land of freedom while she was confined in her home in Manila for the unforeseeable future. It started to affect her mind and stress level. It affected mine, too.

Manila was a little over a week ahead of the U.S. in terms of the COVID-19 prevention. Unlike in the United States or in Japan, the new regulations placed on the people in Manila were strictly enforced. She hadn’t stepped outside of our house for the last 3 weeks. It will stay this way indefinitely. It was no surprise that she sent off her friends with envy.

She and I had numerous conversations about it and I tried my best to explain to her the reasoning behind our family decision. Hopefully, this experience has become an opportunity for our teenager to understand that every family makes a different decision based on each family’s needs.

Another instance that I found challenging was handling the stress of our children. My friend, Michelle in Hong Kong warned in my previous post to watch out for “Quarantine Days.” I did observe the quarantine days creep up on us all at different times. There are days when I could just sense that kids are more emotional and short with everything. I’m no better than them, either, which made it difficult for me to parent.

Considering how dramatically my kids’ lives have changed, I would say that they have done a marvelously job adjusting to the new lifestyle. They took distance learning in stride (I had a few bumps myself) and smoothly adapted themselves to isolation of lockdown. Therefore, I want to be fair with them and make sure that I’m not the reason for them to feel sad. On days when I am feeling down, though, being the best version of myself hasn’t always been possible.

Staying Poisitive

There are days that are hard. Period. You hear news that scares you. What makes this situation frustrating may be that no one knows when this fight against COVID-19 would end. It could go on for months from now. Can we see our families back home this summer? When do we see our friends next? Could we have our normal life back? So many unknowns and what-ifs.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said, “you don’t make the timeline, the virus makes the timeline.” There is nothing we could do about this except we do our part to help our own community and prevent a surge of cases in our cities.

We’re in a stay-at-home marathon. As long as we stay healthy, have enough food and roof over our heads, I consider ourselves fortunate. Our life in social distancing in Manila continues. Who knows how far we have come and how much longer we’ll have to continue? I’ll try not to let the unknown preoccupy my mind, though. Instead, I will live each day with gratitude for my life and my family to be together.

Thank you for reading my blog. Please stay safe and healthy!